Former ambassador graces Midd

Author: Aylie Baker

In November of 1979, along a crowded street in Islamabad, Pakistan, hungry flames licked the U.S. embassy's shivering structure. Just kilometers away, huddled in the U.S. Consulate building, Jeffrey Lunstead and his colleagues found themselves under similar attack. His car was burned. His wife was evacuated almost immediately. Yet the young diplomat stayed.

Nearly 30 years after entering the Foreign Service, Visiting Professor Lunstead sits at the head of the classroom in a quaint college town, luring students from the balmy snowscape to discuss a region of the world with which he is intimately connected. "Modern South Asia: Conflict, Religion and Development" is not your typical Winter Term course. Armed with his congenial candor, Lunstead transforms the classroom into a bustling embassy, the campus into a South Asian landscape.

In his junior year at Notre Dame, Lunstead took an international tour, spending considerable time in India. The trip sparked a lifelong interest in Southeast Asia, one that would compel him to pursue graduate work and eventually lead him to enter the Foreign Service.

Over his 29 years in the Foreign Service, Lunstead and his family would move more than a dozen times - residing in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh and Malaysia before finally securing a position as ambassador of Sri Lanka and the Maldives in 2003.

"I've dealt with them all," admittedLunstead, who over the course of his tenure rubbed elbows with the upper echelons of political power - prime ministers, presidents, and even the king of Afghanistan. But he also came to know and understand the people - the citizens of the countries with which he was working.

Indeed, remarked Lunstead, "That is one of the great pleasures, to get to know a wide range of people across a society. To get to know a society."

"But when you deal with them you're dealing with them as representatives of the United States," stressed Lunstead. U.S. popularity abroad waxed and waned over his years in service. Indeed, popular opinion was not always laudatory. "It depended on the place, the time," said Lunstead.

When asked about his command of South Asian languages, Lunstead paused. "Oh, well, it depends how you count."

"I speak four languages well."

Lundstead speaks Sanskrit and Hindi, but then there's a whole host of other languages with which he speaks with some command, depending on the locale, the country or the region.

With their itinerant lifestyle, the Lunstead family certainly experienced a great deal. His wife is a distinguished artist and musician and his two daughters are graduates of diverse international schools. It's no wonder that when hounded for memories, Lunstead finds himself dumbfounded in his mental shuffling through the past.

On his eldest daughter's 11th birthday, the Lunstead family hiked a mountain in Nepal. Shrouded by a dome of cerulean blue, the family shared pieces of roasted cake, entertained by a chorus of mountain echoes, of rising hills. Talk about being on top of the world.

Having retired from the Foreign Service, Lunstead is now a research scholar at American University. "My interest in Southeast Asia was both academic and practical," explained Lunstead, who is excited to delve into academia once again. While he occasionally revisits the region on business, he and his wife seem content to remain stateside for at least a while.

Just a fortnight ago, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed by militants, marking yet another "chapter in the sad story of the Pakistani government," said Lunstead. Though today's political actors may be different, the assassination certainly resonates with the former ambassador.

But, at least for now, the tables have turned. This past Tuesday afternoon, it was Lunstead playing President Musharaff in the class' simulated interview. And his students? U.S. ambassadors.